How Mad Jack and his Sabre Seven fooled US

ALERTED by the crash of his compound’s gates being forced open, the thump of running feet and gunshots, Maulawi Siddiq, 48, rushed from his house in alarm. From a window beside him a bearded gunman, dressed in a badged American army uniform and Afghan pukul hat, leapt into his path, assault rifle raised, yelling: “Hands up.”

Mr Siddiq had just had his first encounter with Jonathan K. Idema, aka “Mad Jack”, criminal, fraudster and fantasist, at present shackled in a Kabul cell facing charges including torture and illegal detention.

But if Mr Siddiq was fooled then so, too, were the American Special Forces and Nato explosive experts who swarmed into the yard in Mr Idema’s footsteps: they apparently believed that they were operating in support…

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